Chatham Community Library will host a six-week film and discussion series on U.S. Presidents beginning Thursday, August 24th, from 6:00-8:00 pm in the Holmes Meeting Room. The series, Presidents, Politics and Power: American Presidents Who Shaped the 20th Century is part of the “Let’s Talk About It” project sponsored by the North Carolina Humanities Council and the North Carolina Center for the Book (a program of the State Library of North Carolina).

During the twentieth century the American presidency became the most powerful office in the world. The basis for the power inhered in the extraordinary natural wealth of the United States, in a dynamic economy that operated within an expanding free market, and in the vigorous entrepreneurial energy that those conditions encouraged. But these ingredients did not themselves constitute national power. It required the agency of strong national leadership to make the decisions and shape the policies that would transform the United States by century’s end from an insular, second-rate military entity to an indispensable world power.

Presidents, Politics and Power focuses on six U.S. leaders: Theodore Roosevelt, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Harry Truman, Lyndon Johnson, Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan and offers a direct route into central policy questions. Those questions include managing economic growth while balancing the demands of a free market with the needs of labor and consumers, and shaping foreign and military policy to maintain national security and define the country’s changing relationship to the world.

The series consists of six sessions, each featuring a film biography to provide context for discussion. North Carolina Humanities Council Road Scholars Willie Nelms and Billy Yeargin, Jr. will lead the discussion and film sessions.

This project is made possible by funding from the North Carolina Humanities Council, a statewide nonprofit and affiliate of the National Endowment for the Humanities. Any views expressed in this program do not necessarily represent those of the North Carolina Humanities Council.

For questions regarding the upcoming film and discussion series please contact Rita Van Duinen, Branch Manager for the Chatham Community Library at 919-545-8083 or via email at rita.vanduinen@chathamlibraries.org.